The flow of a compressible, viscous, heat‐conducting, radiating gray gas near a flat plate set impulsively in motion in its own plane is considered. The plate Mach number is assumed to be sufficiently large so that dissipation cannot be neglected but not so large that the orders of magnitude of the thermophysical properties are changed. Asymptotic expansions are made for large ratio of the photon to molecular mean free path,N, and general values of the Boltzmann number Bo. In the limitN→ ∞ with Bo finite and plate temperature equal to the temperature of the gas at rest, the asymptotically optimal scalings split the problem into an optically thin, compressible, viscous boundary layer with radiative emission but no self‐absorption and an optically finite, inviscid, acoustic flow with full radiative interaction. The equations in the boundary layer and in the inviscid region are solved numerically for several representative cases. In the boundary layer the velocity profile is only weakly affected by radiation, whereas the temperature is substantially reduced below the radiationless value. In the inviscid region an acoustic wave propagates normal to the plate and is dispersed by long‐range radiative interaction.